While Lupe Fiasco just released his joint EP House with Kaelin Ellis, it appears that he always has multiple irons in the fireāand one rumored project is a collaboration with Nas.
During a conversation with Apple Musicās Ebro Darden, the host asked Lupe point-blank if the Nas collab rumors were true.
āWe talked about theĀ Amy Winehouse record, right?ā Lupe said, around the 10:50 mark. āIt was like, go in the studio, Nas has a bunch of blunts thereāheās obviously ready. ā¦ Itās like, āOh, what are we doing? What am I stepping into? What are we finna do right now?ā The conversation that we had was incredibleāit was unbelievable. And then it went into, āOk, so what are we doing? What do you want to do?ā And I told him about the Amy Winehouse piece. I was like, āThis is what Iām engaged in right now, conceptuallyāmaybe it tickles your fancy. ā¦ It just tapered from like, āOk, letās see, whatever.ā Then Nas goes on to be Nas, Lupe goes on to be Lupe. So thatās kinda where it ends.ā
Lupe continued, āI have Nasā phone number, so Iām feeling myself maybe a month ago and I was like listening to some beats, going through the concepts. ā¦ I was just like, āYou know what, letās do an EP. Life is short, COVID-19. Letās do an EP.ā Iāve not heard back yet,ā he said laughing.
Itās unclear when Lupe and Nasā studio meeting took place. Last May, the two were spotted at Nasā Mass Appeal studio in New York, just days after meeting at the 2019 City Harvest Gala in late April.
Lupe is a huge fan of Nas, even getting the second half of his stage name from the song āFirm Fiasco,ā a song by the Nas-featuring 1990s rap supergroup, The Firm. In the past, Lupe has also conceded that his debut Food & Liquor was based on Nasā 1996 LP It Was Written.
It's fitting that Lupe would ask NasĀ to jump onboard a Winehouse project, particularly since Nas and Winehouse shared a close bond, appearing on songs likeĀ "Cherry Wine." One of NasĀ and Winehouse's last collaborations was the songĀ āLike Smoke.ā However, NasĀ wasnāt really into the idea of recording the posthumous duet with the late singer, which was included on her compilation album Lioness: Hidden Treasures.
āPart of me didnāt want to do the song,ā he said during a SXSW panel in 2012. āAmy and I share a birthday, so she was my sister. And she was just so much fun to be around. She would say things about well-known people in the industry that she didnāt like and it would just crack me upā¦ We were all hoping she would pull through and come back.ā
In February 2019, Salaam Remi shared an unreleased Nas and Winehouse posthumous collaboration called āFind My Love,ā which was included on the producerās Do it For The Culture 2 compilation project that dropped at the top of the year.